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Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Maurice "Not Entirely Lite"

For starters, I decided to conduct one battle in my Formaggian Succession Wars campaign, using the "Lite" version of Maurice.

As one side's army was almost entirely made up from fresh conscripts after a devastating defeat, I gave them a combat value of 4, whereas all units in the Lite verison have 6.

I used the morale rules from the Lite booklet, and did not include too much terrain or any Notables.

The scenario is this: two allied Houses advance on a weakened third. The defending side is really on the defensive this time, the enemy has overwhelming numbers.

House Gattopardo (defending)

8x Conscript regular infantry

6x Trained regular cavalry

1x Artillery

House Schiavona (attacking)

6x Trained regular infantry

6x Trained regular cavalry

3x Artillery

House Tempobello (attacking)

4x Trained regular infantry

3x Trained regular cavalry

2x Artillery

As a twist of fate, most of the artillery the attackers used previously belonged to House Gattopardo. Actually, the two attacking houses had over 25 cannon altogether, according to the 'real' OOB, while the defenders had only 3, so I rounded the latter up.

The attackers had two CIC markers, but could play only one action/event each turn. They could measure the distance from any of the two CICs.

On the first photo you could already see some action developing on the left. The Schiavona cavalry entered the field in flying columns, changed formation quickly, and launched at the rather weak enemy right. The Gattopardo infantry stood their ground, fired a volley and routed one regiment, but the rest delivered and threw back the enemy horse, inflicting great losses.

The advance on the right stalled. Trying to seize the opportunity, the Gattopardo horse marched further out, and their Tempobello foes quickly counter-marched.

The main advance reached under the fortified enemy positions. The Schiavona infantry encountered fierce resistance.

The Tempobello infantry's advance was halted by a bog that was Not on the Map.

The foremost Gattopardo infantry shot up the Schiavona Cacciatori badly, then sallied from their trenches and slaughtered them to a man. The enemy was so shocked that they had time to retreat up the hill before being cut off.

One unit of Gattopardo horse could escape the enemy squadrons in good order on the extreme right. The defending General hoped to consolidate the situation by pulling the remaining units back.

The Tempobello cavalry on the right had finally launched into action, and with great success too: two units of enemy horse were routed.

With both their flanks threatened, the defenders could only hope to cling onto the trenches and repel any advance. At first, everything went smoothly: they held against the Schiavona line infantry, rallied and remained in their positions...

But then, no matter how bravely they fought, the grenadier battalion had outflanked them, and a combined charge took over their position.

With the capture of the fortified hill, the Gattopardo forces could not hope to carry on: the single battalion that fought so bravely remained for a rearguard action, and the rest had abandoned the field.

The allied houses scored a strategic victory (never reaching close enough to the objective to cut it short). Both the cavalry on their left and the main battle line suffered heavy casualties, but the total loss only amounted to three companies of foot and two squadrons of horse.

Meanwhile, the Tempobello infantry remained sitting in the bog. Perhaps they were led by the infamous General Shrecco.

As you can see, I've bought card protectors for my Maurice card set. They seemed to have some wear which I did not like at all. It can be sort of forgiven because they have seen heavy use, now they will last even longer. This also meant that I had to place them in a larger box.